After months of recording remarkably low rates of COVID-19 infection, the Gaza Strip is witnessing a worrying outbreak of the virus, recording nearly 300 new cases in just the past week — and it’s just the beginning.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in Palestine back in March, authorities in Gaza had reported just over 100 total cases reported in nearly six months.
But last week, health officials reported the first locally transmitted cases of the virus, with four new cases in one of Gaza’s refugee camps.
Since then, the total number of recorded coronavirus cases in Gaz has risen to 400, with 319 active cases, the vast majority of which are locally transmitted.
The coronavirus death toll in Gaza has also risen, with five COVID-19 related deaths as of Tuesday — four of which were reported in the last week.
In response to the outbreak, authorities in Gaza announced a state of emergency and have renewed territory wide lockdowns as part of an effort to contain, trace, and test for the virus.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has warned that if they lose control of containment efforts, it could spell disaster for the territory, which is one of the most densely populated areas on earth, with some of the most high unemployment rates in the world, which have only been exacerbated by COVID-19.
According to the MOH, there are 120 ventilators in all of Gaza, some of which are already in use by patients with chronic illnesses.
“Should the COVID-19 pandemic take root in Gaza, the consequences would likely be very serious,” Michael Lynk, special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, said on Tuesday.
“While the international community has been providing the medical supplies to deal with the pandemic, Gaza lacks the health care infrastructure – particularly regarding hospital capacity and the quantity of health professionals, testing kits and respiratory equipment – to manage a widespread outbreak. The cutting of fuel supplies by Israel throughout August makes a humanitarian crisis even worse,” Lynk said, referencing the shut down of Gaza’s only power plant last month.
Lynk welcomed the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas officials in Gaza, which came as a much needed respite after weeks of Israeli airstrikes, but urged that the “purely human-made disaster” in Gaza could only be ended if Israel ends its 13-year blockade on the territory.
“Gaza is on the verge of becoming unlivable,” he said. “There is no comparable situation in the world where a substantial population has endured such a permanent lockdown, largely unable to travel or trade, and controlled by an occupying power in breach of its solemn international human rights and humanitarian obligations. Our international standards of dignity and morality do not allow such experiments in human despair.”
A reminder:
Human Rights Watch, 2005: “Israel will continue to be an Occupying Power [of the Gaza Strip] under international law and bound by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention because it will retain effective control over the territory and over crucial aspects of civilian life. Israel will not be withdrawing and handing power over to a sovereign authority – indeed, the word ‘withdrawal’ does not appear in the [2005 disengagement] document at all. The IDF will retain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline, and airspace, and will reserve the right to enter Gaza at will. According to the Hague Regulations, ‘A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised’. International jurisprudence has clarified that the mere repositioning of troops is not sufficient to relieve an occupier of its responsibilities if it retains its overall authority and the ability to reassert direct control at will.”
“‘The significance of the [then proposed] disengagement plan [from Gaza, implemented in 2005] is the freezing of the peace process,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Ha’aretz. ‘And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a [U.S.] presidential blessing [i.e. President George Bush] and the ratification of both houses of Congress.’ Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Ha’aretz for the Friday Magazine. ‘The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,’ he said. ‘It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.’” (Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, Ha’aretz, October 6, 2004)